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Chapter 2
The Role of 3D Models in Virtual Heritage Infrastructures
Erik Champion
Introduction
The success of virtual heritage projects, through the careful inspection, contextualization and
modification of 3D digital heritage models with virtual reality technology, is still problematic.
Models are hard to find, impossible to download and edit, in unusual, unwieldy or obsolete formats.
Many of the freely available models are standalone 3D meshes with no accompanying metadata or
information on how the acquisition of the data. Few have information on if or how the models can
be shared (and if they are editable). Fewer still quantify the accuracy of the scanning or modelling
process, or make available the scholarly documents, field reports, photographs and site plans that
allowed the designers to extract enough information for their models.
Where there are suitable models in standard formats that are available from repositories, such as in
Europeana library portal, they are likely to be in unwieldy 3D Formats. For example, 3D models
encased in the proprietary PDF format cannot be extended, altered or otherwise removed from the
PDF. Part of the problem has been with the development of virtual heritage; part of the problem has
been due to a lack of necessary infrastructure. In this chapter, I will suggest another way of looking
at virtual heritage, and I will promote the concept of a scholarly ecosystem for virtual heritage
where both the media assets involved and the communities (of scholars, shareholders and the
general public) are all active participants in the development of digital heritage that is a part of
living heritage.
Virtual Heritage
Nearly two decades ago, experts defined virtual heritage as a fusion of virtual reality technology
with cultural heritage content (Addison 2000; Addison et al. 2006; Roussou 2002). Stone and Ojika
(Stone and Ojika 2000) defined virtual heritage as:
… the use of computer-based interactive technologies to record, preserve, or recreate artifacts,
sites and actors of historic, artistic, religious, and cultural significance and to deliver the results
openly to a global audience in such a way as to provide formative educational experiences
through electronic manipulations of time and space.
Many of the most famous and ambitious virtual heritage projects are digital simulations of
UNESCO world heritage sites, yet the definitions do not explicitly address UNESCO’s definition of
intangible heritage. UNESCO defined intangible heritage as: ‘practices, representations,
expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces
associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of
their cultural heritage’ (UNESCO 2003). I suggest extending the definition to virtual heritage, to
address the concerns of intangible heritage, because if we do not create simulations of our
understanding as to how artefacts and sites (buildings and landscapes) were used, treasured and
cared for, the public may not appreciate the cultural significance of the heritage site or object.
Virtual Heritage Environments (VHEs), in particular, can display content in new and more
experientially appropriate ways, bridging disparate collections and remote sites with the intangible
heritage of the original shareholders (such as oral history, mythology and other cultural beliefs and
traditions) beyond the physical constraints of the real world. Ideally, VHEs help the public to
• Create, share and discuss hypothetical or counterfactual places
• Meet virtually in these places with colleagues to discuss them
• Contextually understand limitations forced on the original inhabitants of the simulated
environment.
The technology also helps content experts and scholars develop experiential ways to entice a new
and extended audience to both admire the content and the methods of their area of research, while
providing them with feedback mechanisms and community input that does not require physical
visitation.
Despite recent technological advances, simulating intangible heritage with digital media is not
trivial. Creating a visual and photo-realistic simulation can be misleading, people did not live in
photographs, they inhabited space. Hence I take a wider and more inclusive view of visualization
than the visual even if important virtual heritage charters like the London Charter (Denard 2009)
define computer-based visualization as ‘[t]he process of representing information visually with the
aid of computer technologies.’ Virtual heritage is not simply the recreation of what used to be there,
a collection of objects. Cultural objects had specific and situated meaning in terms of the cultural
perceptions of the land’s traditional inhabitants so digital reproducing how they may have looked as
pristine artefacts is not enough, it only conveys what was left, not what was used and why it was
valued. We must also convey the specific and situated importance of that cultural heritage to the
public because UNESCO World Heritage awards heritage status for objects and sites of unique
value.
In a book chapter written in 2008 (Champion 2008) I suggested that virtual heritage is ‘the attempt
to convey not just the appearance but also the meaning and significance of cultural artefacts and the
associated social agency that designed and used them, through the use of interactive and immersive
digital media.’ I defined new media (Champion 2008) as ‘the act of reshaping the user experience
through the innovative use of digital media.’ New media is thus a part of but not directly
synonymous to digital heritage for new media is constantly changing and so the way it is used and
appreciated by the end user is also constantly changing.
If we are examining the end user experience of virtual heritage and in particular, how the end user is
affected by changing experiences predicated by evolving technology, we could call this
phenomenon new heritage. If new heritage is the application of new media to digital heritage, then
by extension the purpose of new heritage is to ‘examine the user experience that digital media can
provide for the understanding and experiencing of tangible and intangible cultural heritage’.
However, it is not just the user experience of virtual heritage that requires constant review, the
development of virtual heritage as an academic discipline and particularly as scholarly
infrastructure is seldom discussed, the aims and objectives are assumed to be shared and
understood. In an article I co-authored with Laia Tost (Tost and Champion 2011), we identified six
aims for the scholarly development of virtual heritage:
Firstly, it should aim to carefully capture objects and processes of scientific, social or spiritual
value. Secondly, it should present this information as accurately, authentically, and engagingly
as possible. Thirdly, it should attempt to distribute the project in a sensitive, safe and durable
manner to as wide and long-term an audience as possible. Fourthly, it should aim to provide an
effective and inspirational learning environment that best communicates the intended
pedagogical aims. Fifthly, it should allow the possibility to participate in its construction.
Finally, it should attempt to carefully evaluate its effectiveness with regard to the above five
aims in order to improve both the project and virtual heritage in general.
The above aims are more pedagogically focussed than the earlier definitions, because there is no
educational impact gained from records and collections hidden from the public. Yet galleries,
libraries, archive and museums (GLAM industries) can only display a fraction of the collections
that they own and have access to. Many museums lack the space to display the majority of their
collection (Bradley 2015) and there are a myriad of other problems to be faced when preserving
cultural heritage in physical museums (Baio 2015; Barsanti et al. 2014; CSIRO 2014; Lepore 2015;
Michaelis et al. 2012; Widdowson 2014).
There are logistic challenges with physical collections but also conceptual challenges in how
heritage collections can be maintained, disseminated, improved upon and expanded in the face of
changing markets, budgets and technology. Digital technologies hold obvious promise for
expanding the public dissemination of knowledge associated with these collections even when
physical access of the artefacts is restricted or their physical constitution is fragile, but the potential
of digital media is limited when designers do not maximize the pedagogical impact of virtual
heritage projects by selecting appropriate interaction. Digital models become meaningful
simulations when they convey the culturally contextual ways in which they may have been used by
past and distant cultures.
Why is Infrastructure Required for Virtual Heritage?
Previous definitions of virtual heritage have emphasized the criterion of preservation, but I suggest
(with reluctance) that virtual heritage has been focused more on communication than on
preservation; it showcases new uses and potential of technology for cultural heritage, but the
funding models and composition of project teams have had minimal usability evaluations and
preservation strategies. Unfortunately, while virtual heritage has had muted success in showing how
digital technology can provide insight into past cultures, as digital heritage it has been remarkably
unsuccessful at saving its own showcase projects. Lost or inaccessible examples include Rome
Reborn (Dylla et al. 2008), Beyond Space and Time (IBM, 2008), or the 1996-1998 SGI
Teotihuacan VRML 2.0 model, (partially online but with missing links at
http://www.kith.org/logos/things/VRML/handbook/).
Hal Thwaites (Thwaites 2013) is even more damning in his assessment of the current situation:
In the very near future some critical issues will need to be addressed; increased accessibility to
(and sharing of) heritage data, consistent interface design for widespread public use and re-
presentations of work, the formalization of a digital heritage database, establishment of a
global infrastructure, institutionalized, archival standards for digital heritage and most
importantly the on-going curation, of work forward in time as the technology evolves so that
our current digital, heritage projects will not be lost to future generations. We cannot afford to
have our digital heritage disappearing faster than the real heritage or the sites it seeks to
‘preserve’ otherwise all of our technological advances, creative interpretations, visualizations
and efforts will have been in vain.
There is a global imperative to collate and store digital heritage models of heritage sites (Reinhard,
2013). We also lack a way to provide access to the models, sites and paradata (which the London
Charter (Denard, 2009) defines as ‘Information about human processes of understanding and
interpretation of data objects’). Despite initiatives such as the London Charter (Denard 2009) and
the Seville Charter (Lopez-Menchero and Grande 2011) as there are few publicly accessible models
(Barsanti et al. 2014) shared standardized evaluation data are hard to find. Scholars have
complained about user experience issues and a scarcity of suitable pedagogical material (Economou
and Pujol 2008). There is also a myriad of practical and technical problems, such as how we are to
gauge the accuracy of the recording and modelling process from a single 3D mesh, or how we are to
judge the relative authenticity of the simulated material (De Reu et al. 2012; Pitzalis et al. 2010).
Discussions of virtual heritage models are found in journals such as Journal of Computing and
Cultural Heritage, but actual virtual heritage models are much more difficult to find. There are very
few online and library-accessible depositories for virtual heritage models, and many of the
academic research projects lack long-term infrastructure and preservation strategies. Yet
infrastructure is critical if we are to sustain scholarly communication, enrich public involvement
and consolidate the currently promised – rather than proven – heritage component of virtual
heritage.
If we are serious in helping the public understand and participate in virtual heritage, then the public
need to understand the potential and limitations of the technologies as well. Workshops on 3D tools
and software are required, which will allow communities, heritage groups and classrooms to learn
from developing their own models and artefacts using free and open source game engines and 3D
modelling tools.
Desirable Features of Virtual Heritage Projects
3D Models
Virtual heritage projects are typically composed of 3D models. Key features of the models should
be that they engage the audience, are formative (allowing the audience to create test and share
hypotheses), can be recycled and reconfigured, and are amenable to preservation. It might seem
opportune then to digitalize everything one can afford but the reliability of 3D data for long-term
preservation is an ongoing issue: ‘The possibility exists for precious and costly data sets to be lost
on failed hard-drives, destroyed in floods or fires, or simply thrown out’(Greenop and Barton 2014).
Formats are another issue (http://pvw.illinois.edu/pvw/) in the field of computer games researchers
have even gone so far as to preserve the entire original game by wrapping it as an executable inside
another programme (Carroll 2012). Sven Havemann (Havemann 2012) went so far as to complain:
The file format problem is maybe today the most annoying obstacle for a further spread of 3D
technology. Most of the aforementioned sophisticated shape representations can simply not be
stored due to a lack of a common file format. The menace of file format degradation makes
sustainable 3D only an illusion.
I find it difficult to disagree. A serious technical obstacle is the absence of a shared, secure, feature-
rich format for 3D models (Koller et al. 2009). Although there are at least 140 file formats for 3D
models (McHenry and Bajcsy 2008) almost all have major issues in either access, reliability,
longevity or range of features (Koller et al. 2009). Most research projects and publications that
examine the usefulness of 3D file formats for virtual heritage appear to focus on .obj, .3ds, .u3d
(which allows a 3D model to be embedded inside the .pdf file format), .o3d (a less well-known
Google format which is now Open Source), .x3d (the successor to VRML), or Collada’s .dae format
(originally a file format designed for easy transfer between different modelling applications).
Luckily, there are powerful and free file format converters like MeshLab
(http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/).
Which 3D format holds the most promise for virtual heritage projects? Choosing a format that is
robust, durable, well supported, free, highly interactive, cross-platform, and easy to create or export
to or export from is a serious challenge. Major 3D formats such as .unity, .dae, .3ds, .obj, .blend and
.x3d all have their advantages and disadvantages, but it is risky to offer only one format. At the time
of writing, I suggest that the most promising file formats for archiving of 3D file formats and for
simple web-based viewing of the 3D models would be obj, .x3d, or .dae. However, we need to
distinguish between a format to store models in an archive, and a format that allows people to
immerse themselves in an online browser-based virtual environment. For example, .x3d (related to
and a successor to VRML) offers a stable environment, is truly cross-platform, works well on the
Internet and is free, but its functionality is limited and there are still relatively few exemplars and
showcases.
To make interactive 3D models available via the Internet, various commercial and open source
game engines have a range of features, 3D model libraries, examples and shortcuts to avoid
extensive programming. Major common game engines that feature accessible editing and mudding
for communities include Unity, Blender, CryEngine and Unreal. Most of these game engines can
run as standalone applications, as web plugins, and across a range of devices (desktop and surround
computers, specialized stereoscopic surround display screens, smartphones, and game consoles).
Another relatively recent option is WebGL, a JavaScript Application Programming Interface (API)
that allows 3D interactive graphics (and 2D graphics) to work inside any major web browser
requiring a plugin, three.js. The plugin will load .obj models into WebGL
(http://threejs.org/examples/webgl_loader_obj.html) without requiring advanced programming (and
there are methods to export to Collada format). X3d models can run natively in HTML pages and
Blender models will export directly to WebGL using Blend4web (https://www.blend4web.com/).
Arguably, the most popular interactive game engine for virtual heritage is Unity. It is both relatively
stable and very powerful and flexible, but the Pro version is considerably more expensive. Unity
formats might not support such formats in the future. Other commercial game engine editors like
CryEngine and Unreal 4-UDK have free versions but they also have cost / profit requirements based
on the revenue from games sold, and they are under no obligation to ensure older versions are still
being maintained. Therefore, a proprietary 3D format is best avoided. If a game engine (a real-time
rendering engine) is required, then a solution would be to have the game engine or application add
the components (assets) dynamically, requiring the model to be broken up into subcomponents and
then the computer would stream and connect to these subcomponents (packages) at runtime. There
may also be a compromise solution that allows both a robust but limited 3D format for archived
models and a more interactive format available either via a browser or as a downloadable
application. An example of such a solution would be to archive models in, e.g., .x3d, but also
provide an online converter or reformatter that can export from .x3d into, e.g., blender files (.blend)
or text files that can be read by game engines.
Metadata
A complementary issue to that of selecting appropriate formats and solutions for 3D models is how
will we even find these models? We require metadata in the 3D models so we can find and classify
them, an ontology of model components so we can find and label individual parts, a storage and
retrieval system for the 3D models and a way of linking the models with external assets (other
media assets as well as publications and papers).
Metadata is essential for virtual heritage to establish itself as a long-term research area, but
metadata has to help the objectives of virtual heritage, which are arguably as much or more about
education as they are about preservation. In a previous section, I mentioned six aims for virtual
heritage projects: care, accuracy, sensitivity, effective and inspirational pedagogical features, and
they should be collaborative and evaluation-orientated (Tost and Champion 2011). Extrapolating
from these aims, I suggest the following features are desirable for designing 3D virtual heritage
models or for developing an infrastructure that can support virtual heritage models for the purpose
of classroom teaching and public dissemination:
(1) Data accuracy: the level of accuracy and type of data capture method should be documented
and associated with the model (and, if possible, the geographical location)
(2) Format limitations: any known limitations or required conditions due to the digital format or
way in which the data was created should also be included with the model
(3) Provenance: the record of ownership and scholarship and community input should be
recorded and accessible (the source and the ownership rights)
(4) Community protocols: social, cultural and institutional protocols that guide who accesses
the sourced cultural heritage and how that should regulate the transmission, distribution and
dissemination of the digitally simulated model
(5) Authenticity: the known, extrapolated, omitted, simplified and imagined areas and
components of the model should be identified in some form of thematic (and preferably
standardized) schema
(6) Cultural presence: models should aim towards explaining the cultural significance of the
original site, and give an impression of the situated cultural value of the place as
experienced by the original inhabitants
(7) Evaluation Data: these aims should be clearly explained and any evaluation data of
participants should be linked to (or otherwise associated with) the models
(8) Purpose: the generic ways in which original creators and shareholders intended the models
to be edited or otherwise modified could be described in accompanying text.
The first three considerations (and possibly all of the others, especially 5: Authenticity) require the
careful and appropriate use of metadata. As Wise and Miller (Wise and Miller 1997) have noted,
metadata (‘data about data’), allows users to be informed without having to access the entire body
of data, it helps them find information and it helps them to group and link ‘bodies of information’
together. In 2008, Addison (Addison 2008) proposed the following list of virtual heritage metadata
elements:
Type
#
Data Encoding/Format
What
i.
HeritageID (a superset of existing WorldHeritageID)
ii.
Title/brief description
iii.
Heritage Type/Classification (e.g.: cultural: archaeological …)
iv.
Heritage Time Period (e.g.: geologic or historic time)
v.
Heritage Time Span
Why
vi.
Purpose (reason recorded/produced)
How
vii.
Recording Device Parameters (type, sample rate, precision …)
viii.
Secondary Device(s) (data manipulation)
ix.
Environmental conditions
Whom
x.
Submitter and Date of Submission
xi.
Rights given/withheld
xii.
Author/Copyright Holder
xiii.
Sponsor/Funder/Client
When
xiv.
Date (of recording, manipulation)
Where
xv.
Location (Latitude/Longitude + compass direction if applicable)
Although I disagree with their initial selection of 3D-PDF (.pdf) as a file format, a notable success
of the CARARE consortium (D'Andrea and Fernie 2013) was the definition of CARARE Schema
(Fernie 2013). This metadata schema was inspired in part from CIDOC-CRM, which is arguably
the best-known cultural heritage ontology framework (Geser and Niccolucci 2013) and inspired in
part by the MIDAS UK metadata standard. It is interesting to compare the list of elements in
CARARE Schema (Heritage Asset Identification Set, Digital Resource, Activity, and Collection
Information) with Addison’s proposed metadata. Although the CARARE metadata schema includes
a separate Global Information element that holds additional information (record information,
appellation, rights, temporal and spatial information, actors, contacts, addresses and a publication
statement), I would suggest one further addition: part of the metadata should record the culturally
significant cultural heritage features noted above, and the reasons why that heritage environment or
artefact deserves to be preserved, simulated and communicated (Dappert and Farquhar 2009;
Hockx-Yu and Knight 2008; Knight and Pennock 2009).
Connecting to Text and other Digitalized Resources
Even if we agree on a suitable 3D format supported by a robust and open infrastructure, we also
need to leverage the potential of digital media to create new synergies between traditional forms of
media. Many of the historic strengths of print-based publishing have now become cumbersome
liabilities. Even digitized scholarly articles rarely allow interactivity, they are typically distributed
in the PDF format and are plagued by its limitations ( (PDF files are slow, can crash the computer,
take up valuable screen space, are confusing to annotate, and the only application to take full
advantage of their features is expensive), and underlying data is seldom conveniently
retrievable. Added to these issues is the undeniably messy reality of archaeological excavation and
recording. For instance, Reinhard (Reinhard 2014) wrote:
Archaeology is messy, and it deals with three-dimensional artifacts in four-dimensional space-
time. Its publications should reflect that ... Our new publications must incorporate all of these
elements to create a record and interpretation of what we have discovered, leaving that data and
interpretation open to criticism, dialogue, and growth over time. …
There are two major issues that all publishers of archaeology (and of scholarship generally)
must address now: 1) how to publish archaeology online, moving away from a traditional, two-
dimensional, print-informed model, toward a multi-dimensional, interactive one that accepts
that archaeological data is messy and continues to grow and change over time, and 2) how to
publish archaeology in an open fashion that makes content easily discoverable and immediately
accessible, promoting linking from external sources while linking itself to other open online
resources.
How can we link 3D models to library and archival systems holding scholarly literature and
multimedia resources that communicate important historical and cultural aspects of the simulated
heritage site? Current journals that feature scholarly papers and 3D models typically lack the
capability to integrate with text resources, and have limited interactivity and immersion (Elsevier
undated). If on the other hand we create dynamic links between 3D models and 2D assets (text and
other media), then it may be possible be to develop evaluation mechanisms to understand how the
viewed and downloaded heritage models and simulations are used and critically reflected on.
Do we have feasible options to achieve this? Consider a publication system which is actually a
framework dynamically drawing on various media components through assigned URIs in other
words, a library of Linked Open Data). It could be a journal-publishing framework (like
http://scalar.usc.edu/) or a communal blogging and publication framework (for example,
http://www.openeditions.com/), which would dynamically link to URIs of 3D projects.
Archaeology also requires a way of updating and augmenting information (Dallas 2015, 2016)
while heritage studies research requires a way of fostering and including community engagement. I
am also convinced that scholars would appreciate a way of creating visual scholarly arguments that
allows feedback from their colleagues and from the public.
Repositories
I think is fair to say that we now have many institutional repositories for academic publications and
scholarly collections. Despite recent European and North American moves to create archives and
digital humanities infrastructures 3D models have not yet been fully incorporated into these new
infrastructures while allowing full public access (Huggett 2012). For example, a major EU project,
CARARE (discussed earlier), created a common library format of 3D models but they were trapped
inside the Adobe PDF format so people could not modify and develop their own content, and the
model did not dynamically link to the scholarly information that made the model possible.
Commercial model repositories offer very consistent formats and protocols for disseminating
downloadable models, but these models are either trapped inside a proprietary format that is
designed to prevent flexible use, are expensive, prohibit modification and future commercial use, or
their accuracy and quality cannot be verified before purchase. Further international efforts to
remedy the above issues include work by 3D Icons (3D HOP) in CIDOC CRM, Europeana
(discussed in the final chapter), Smithsonian Institute X3D BETA, Fraunhoefer (X3DOM ON
GITHUB), Ariadne, EU EPOCH, and V-MUST.
While in Europe, ARIADNE and 3D-ICONS are developing standards and archives that may help
provide some of the answers, in many other regions there are very few accessible 3D models of
heritage sites that use a common, stable format. Although there are interesting prototypes and
selective web-based prototypes (such as http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/3dhop/and http://www.3dicons.ie/3d-
content) and online commercial suppliers of 3D models of varying quality and accuracy, there is no
standard thematic research repository or national data service for 3D heritage models that I have
been able to find in the Pacific region or relevant heritage content from overseas websites.
For example, in Australia we simply do not have a shared data infrastructure service that is
providing specialized support for 3D archaeological and heritage data. Yet the Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia (CSIRO) has released a report (CSIRO
2014), stating ‘Australia’s cultural institutions risk losing their relevance if they don’t increase their
use of digital technologies and services.’ Michael Brünig (Brünig 2014) noted that while the
Australian GLAM industry is worth 2.5 billion Australian a year, roughly only a quarter has been
digitized. This is why we look to Europe for inspiration.
Portals
Recent European trends are to create archives and digital humanities infrastructures but 3D models
have not kept up with the progress achieved for other formats of cultural heritage, they are still
silos. In the Europeana portal (http://www.europeana.eu/portal/) one can search by media type, in
this case, 3D. As Europeana is both a portal and a platform, the website visitor can be taken to an
external website without knowing if the 3D model can run in the browser or requires specialist
equipment (for example, please view the artefacts at http://public.cyi.ac.cy/starcRepo/explore).
There are other interesting 3D model websites for cultural heritage institutes such as the
Smithsonian but they do not clearly allow for downloadable usage or explain carefully any cultural
protocols that need to be associated with the ways in which the 3D models can be used
(http://3d.si.edu/). The Smithsonian http://3d.si.edu/ website is in a sense also a platform, it
provides 3D tools to edit and build with, but it is not complete platform in terms of infrastructure, it
is one way. Users can play with 3D models, sometimes edit them, sometimes download them, but
they cannot permanently alter what stays online in the website database and the digital 3D model
does not provide full archival records or other information resource links.
Portals, unlike platforms, merely collect or link to other sites and resources, they don’t provide their
own tools and resources to build things with. They still have their uses, portals can assemble
disparate information conveniently and in a more useful standardized format, they attract more
visitors than individual sites, and provide larger amounts of web-traffic statistics. They can also
allow shareholders (individual website owners) the ability to retain original assets while appearing
as part of a greater digital collection.
Augmented Reality
Twenty years ago, Ron Azuma (Azuma 1997) published a survey on augmented reality (AR),
contrasting it with Virtual Environments (VE) and virtual reality (VR). In that paper Azuma
declared that unlike VR, AR supplements the real world, superimposing virtual objects on the real
world, or compositing virtual objects on the real world. Today’s AR phone applications do not
really qualify, they do not use computer vision to merge 3D data, they simply rely on the GPS
tracking of the camera. Even with this less sophisticated and less spatially immersive technology,
the potential for virtual heritage is obvious (Billinghurst et al. 2015; Chung et al. 2015; tom Dieck
and Jung 2015). Augmented reality does not have to create or recreate an entire scene, and it can
now be carried on consumers’ mobile phones because it does not require the same graphic
rendering as a full virtual reality environment, and it can range in complexity from augmented
avatars that appear on your phone or head-mounted display (HMD) to text labels on the screen of a
phone camera, appearing to float above real-world objects (Dredge 2011). There are even research
projects examining how AR can integrate with museum collections (Kraemer and Kanter 2014) and
community-based projects (Speiginer et al. 2015)
In 2016 I was invited to UCLA for the second National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH)
Advanced Challenges in Theory and Practice in 3D Modeling of Cultural Heritage Sites week-long
workshop. At the first workshop, in 2015 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, some of the
participants decided to start or continue augmented reality history and heritage projects, the
technology looked fascinating. Many AR applications could be used on Android or iOS phones,
some were free, some had clear and easy to use examples, and the increasing power and ease of
phone-based cameras along with their increasing computational power and GPS accuracy. The
recent craze of Pokémon Go (Moskowitz 2016) may have also convinced heritage professionals of
a huge potential education and cultural tourism market. In terms of technological promise, the rise
of software such as Layar (https://www.layar.com/), Aurasma (https://www.aurasma.com/), Vuforia
(https://www.vuforia.com/), along with suitable archaeology, museum, heritage and history case
studies, seems to bear this out.
Nevertheless, in terms of infrastructure, augmented reality is a quagmire. When I visited the NEH
workshop in 2016 (I could only attend the 2015 workshop virtually), I was surprised by the number
of educators and designers who had run into major issues with augmented reality heritage projects.
In this field, we are all used to strange formats, unreliable software, bad user documentations, and
the collapse of certain software. What was new to me was the scale of the augmented reality
company failures. In some cases, the software would store al digital media assets on the cloud (on
distant servers). However, when the software disappeared, so did the original data! As free
software, the companies had not made the transfer and secondary storage of digital media projects
or the digital media assets convenient, or, in some cases, even possible. Obscure formats, hidden
files, incompatible version updates, these are all common when taking up new software, the hype
cycle of new technology can be seductive (Gaudiosi 2016; Gilbert 2015; Mainelli 2016). But not
being able to access the data created by the user? This was clearly a failure of infrastructure.
While the online press predicted a future where AR made screens vanish in the real world
(Chapman 2016), the AR products or even AR companies were the ones doing the vanishing
(Miiler and Constine 2015). As Ogden (Ogden 2015) notes, commercial AR products are walled
gardens, with little in the way of shared standards.
The lesson learnt here: compose your content online, have it stored in the cloud, and when the
software changes or the company goes bankrupt or is sold to an even larger company, be prepared
not only to lose your project, but also the digital media assets that made up that project. It is always
desirable to acquire software from a proven, reliable company that allows the user to store the
project and assets offline, provide and accepts standard formats, can be linked to other media and
other referencing systems, and has the ability to export in different formats.
A Digital Scholarly Eco-system for 3D Digital Heritage
Yet even if we find robust technology and a good range of heritage models that are reliably stored,
have provenance data, and allow the community to edit and modify them, we have a further
problem. Current examples lack initial meaningful context, audience feedback, updated and
maintained content. Despite a plethora of web archives of digital tools and models there is simply
no consistent way for the community to provide feedback. We need to develop ways of linking 3D
models back to the scholarly resources that created them and inform them.
In the proceedings of the 2015 Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology
(CAA2015) conference, I noticed an explosion of papers on Linked Open Data. Before too long, we
should see systematic ways for Linked Open Data to connect to the text files associated with 3D
models. However, we also need to develop ways of dynamically linking models and subcomponents
of models to dynamic but stable documentation on the Internet (Haslhofer and Isaac 2011). This
should be a dynamic two-way link that would link text, 3D models, other media, and community
feedback (scholarly reviews, classroom projects that expand, review and comment on the material).
Furthering the development of a digital heritage journal requires the support of a community of
specialists. For example, it could necessitate incorporating the taxonomy research of CIDOC and
NeDiMAH, the 3D tools directory of DiRT Bamboo, the projects and community of DHCommons
and centerNet, and international networks of digital humanities centres. What would or could such a
system be? Could tools, methods, projects, scholarly communities and an open access online
journal-publishing system exist to communicate between and beyond digital research
infrastructures, versed in text or in 3D models? Could active communities be encouraged to adopt
and extend this ‘ecosystem’?
More specifically, how could it benefit research and practice into digital heritage? What are the
specific needs and challenges of digital cultural heritage? Which components, user requirements,
and test beds should be addressed if such a scholarly ecosystem is to benefit digital cultural
heritage?
Given that I had already proposed a definition of virtual heritage, why have I returned to the
concept of digital heritage here? Much of today’s heritage resources are text, and two-dimensional.
The development of low-cost and accessible virtual heritage equipment is still around the corner;
hence it makes more sense to develop digital heritage resources that will be able to be used as
content and context when tomorrow’s immersive technologies finally take hold in the general
public. Digital heritage can provide dynamic content to Virtual Heritage, but it should be separated
in name and in practice from the latter, for the latter undergoes constant change.
A Virtual Heritage Repository
Three major thematic issues could prove to be of great import to a virtual heritage repository.
Firstly, VR equipment is moving towards the consumer level, based on the notion of a component
based system whereby your smartphone is both the stereoscopic viewer, and the computer (such as
in the case of the Samsung Gear). Such consumer technology frameworks will help VR technology
and related content become far more accessible. Secondly, there are research groups so concerned
at the silo mentality of earlier virtual heritage projects that they are developing technology solutions
that allow people to create their own content using free and open source technology such as the EU
CHESS project (Pujol et al. 2012), or they are providing technical exemplars using free software
that others can download, modify and learn from. Thirdly, journals are beginning to provide
technology that allows authors to add 3D models inside or next to text-based articles. Two journals
that come to mind are Internet Archaeology, (http://intarch.ac.uk/) discussed in this volume, and
Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage
(http://www.journals.elsevier.com/digital-applications-in-archaeology-and-cultural-heritage/).
Neylon (Neylon 2015): wrote:
What should a shared infrastructure look like? Infrastructure at its best is invisible. We tend to
only notice it when it fails. If successful, it is stable and sustainable. Above all, it is trusted and
relied on by the broad community it serves. Trust must run strongly across each of the following
areas: running the infrastructure (governance), funding it (sustainability), and preserving
community ownership of it (insurance).
I agree with Neylon, and I would distinguish between hard infrastructure (equipment) and soft
infrastructure (people), as both are necessary (Gotbaum 2011). I previously suggested (Champion
2014) that a digital humanities network will not survive for long if it does not create effective
synergies between equipment and people. While some scholars in the digital humanities have
argued that research infrastructures are not research per se (Rockwell 2012), I would like to point to
the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) practical guidelines. The guidelines
clearly state (European Research Infrastructure Consortium 2015) that ‘the ERIC status is reserved
for state-of-the-art research infrastructures that will create unique opportunities to carry out
advanced research, attract the best researchers from across the world and train highly qualified
students and engineers’.
Quality research infrastructure is measured by research, by the quality of the contributors, by the
impact of their contribution, and by the effect of the research infrastructure on them as researchers.
Following these premises, a useful research infrastructure in the new digital age is a scholarly
ecology, an ongoing scholarly appraisal and reconfiguration of all media assets and outputs. It
would be digital in order to leverage the specific benefits of digital media and digital-savvy
audiences. Changes over time, different input mechanisms and learning mediums, allow
counterfactual exploration, log user responses, track user preferences and share insights and
personal feedback from distributed audiences. It would be scholarly, providing associated tools,
interpretative mediums and careful references as well as usage data that could also provide evidence
for solid scholarly arguments. Above all, it would be an ecosystem. All its parts would be
interdependent, and it would hopefully be greater than the sum of its parts. A review community
could be summoned to discuss and add to the models via publications and related links. Future
publications could in turn integrate the community feedback into new research findings, improved
critiques, and an enhanced research base.
Technical Obstacles and Potential Answers
We require a cross-platform long-term robust solution that has ongoing community support and a
flexible, rich feature list. Unfortunately, virtual heritage projects are typically walk-around
interactions only, possibly with pre-recorded text or voice-based information. There are a few
instances of Kinect-based camera tracking or data-driven environment enrichment, but these
projects are still relatively rare and the preservation strategy of these interactive approaches is
seldom discussed.
Overall the projects are monolithic, not traceable, not reconfigurable, not easily preserved, and do
not link to external 2D material either statically or dynamically. Because of their inherent resistance
to reconfiguration or to added audience feedback, these projects do not have strong ongoing
community reach, support and input. Despite a shift to open access models and greater
collaboration with the public, Brünig (Brünig, 2014) cautioned that there is an ongoing need to
explore new approaches to copyright management that stimulate creativity and support creators.
I propose the adoption of a component-based system that can load a robust file format and add links
and media assets to create a dynamic and interactive online environment that can be taken apart and
further modified by the public. Ideally, the Web model can include specific camera angles that can
be triggered by scripts or other cues in case the viewer wishes to be guided through the simulation.
Both the holding page of the archived model and the Web model should provide suitable metadata
and includes provenance metadata (Huggett 2014). The models stored in the system would also link
dynamically to external scholarly repositories. If there are shareholder requirements that stipulate
copyright ownership of the high-resolution model, an agreement could be negotiated so that a lower
resolution model or a model with reduced interaction features is provided to the public.
Shareholders and Communities
It may appear that the overall number and difficulty of technical issues is the major problem to
resolve, but if there is no public involvement, understanding and appreciation, the virtual heritage
project has failed despite any technical brilliance or infrastructure support. Infrastructure that is not
used is not really infrastructure, it is merely equipment. Previous writers have written convincingly
of the importance of archives (Limp et al. 2010) but there is also another important requirement,
ensuring the archive is effectively used. As Garnet and Edmond (Garnett and Edmond 2014) have
declared, ‘Building an API is not enough!’ The success of virtual heritage projects is dependent on
community involvement, which includes scholars, students, the wider public, but also the original
shareholders and owners of the cultural content simulated.
As we develop models, frameworks and infrastructure we may need to consider how to approach
indigenous heritage individuals and group regarding access to the recording and dissemination of
specific cultural heritage content. These considerations may require:
(1) Involvement with indigenous shareholders and experts in the development of guides and
protocols and the sensitive development of digital heritage knowledge
(2) Exploring digitally filtered ways of creating accessible layers and levels of cultural
knowledge
(3) Researching and testing a method for providing on-demand 3D model formats where the
level of access can determine the accuracy and resolution of the generated model to suit the
copyright and ownership requirements of the owners and creators while providing a pre-
determined level of public knowledge
(4) Tailoring digital ontologies, indigenous record collection metadata and folksonomies to
specific aspects of heritage simulations
(5) Developing new forms of copyright permissions that are relevant to the cultural significance
and guardianship of the heritage objects depicted.
For example, in Australia, rock art and other heritage artefacts may have cultural taboos placed on
how they are presented or viewed, whether the audience can be outside the ‘mob’, or even be of a
certain gender. Luckily in Australia there are guidelines both at national (Australian Institute of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) 2012) and at international level (UNESCO
2015), (United Nations 2008) and there is a great deal of scope to help communities establish how
these policies and guidelines can work with the capture, augmentation and dissemination of
sensitive cultural heritage data, indigenous or non-indigenous. I suggest that adherence to these
guidelines be indicated in the metadata.
Where tutorials, tools, and training materials are to be developed for indigenous communities or for
using with indigenous content, they should be developed after consultation with relevant research
conduct policies and ethical guidelines. In Australia, this may mean following documents like the
Guidelines for Ethical Research in Australian Indigenous Studies (GERAIS) and the UN
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) with awareness of and commitment to
free, prior and informed consent protocols that will address Intellectual Property issues, copyright
requirements and other related permissions (such as for multimedia and other media content).
Conclusion: A New Virtual Heritage Infrastructure
I sought to advance three major points in this chapter. Firstly, virtual heritage will not succeed as
digital heritage if it cannot even preserve its own models, and it will not be effective if it cannot
implement the most important advantages of digital technologies (real-time reconfiguration to suit
the learner, device and task at hand, individual personalization, increased sense of agency,
automatic tracking and evaluation mechanisms and filtered community feedback). My suggestion is
to implement not so much a single file format but to agree upon a shared relationship between
assets. For want of a better word, I have described the overall relationship of components of virtual
heritage infrastructure as a digital scholarly ecosystem.
Secondly, in this new age of digital communication the 3D model must be recognized as a key
scholarly resource (Di Benedetto et al. 2014). As a core part of a scholarly ecosystem the 3D model
should be traceable, it should link to previous works and to related scholarly information. I suggest
that the model should be component-based so that parts can be directly linked and updated. Web
models could be dynamically created at runtime. The model should be engaging, thus extensive
play-testing and evaluation will be required to ensure that it actually does engage its intended
audience. As part of a scholarly infrastructure, the 3D model format (and all related data formats)
should be easy to find and reliable. It should not require huge files to download, or it should at least
provide users with enough information to decide whether and what to download. Metadata can also
help record the completeness, measurement methodology and accuracy of the models and Linked
Open Data can help connect these media assets in a sensible and useful way.
Thirdly, the community of scholars, students and the wider public should be involved, and we must
endeavour to incorporate their understanding, feedback and participation (in line with the fact that
this is a core requirement of UNESCO World Heritage status for physical monuments). Community
involvement is necessary for scholars as well, and so I suggest that virtual heritage projects
dynamically link to journals and refereed conference papers, and to the list of tools and methods
that were used. A robust feedback system could help continually improve the system. Other
shareholder issues such as varying levels of learning skills, and varying levels of knowledge
required or cultural knowledge that needs to be hidden (privacy and ownership issues) should also
be incorporated into the project.
3D heritage models are here to stay but that does not mean they are addressing the aims and
objectives of heritage. They are too essential and important to be locked away in proprietary,
unsupported file formats. As designers, practitioners and educators, we need to provide both public
access and robust preservation infrastructures to support them. Technology is only one part of the
solution; we must also develop incentives, guidelines and frameworks.
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